


Flying At The Sun (The Magic Of Letting Go)

by Mytay



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Domestic Fluff, First Time, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions, M/M, No Wayward Son Spoilers, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-11-02 12:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20740781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mytay/pseuds/Mytay
Summary: Wherein Simon Snow's best friend and boyfriend attempt to rid him of his inconvenient wings and tail, which results in an unintentional discovery that wasn't really new, yet somehow is ...Also, Baz finally watchesStar Wars, Penny stops casting cold water charms on them, and there is much cuddling.





	Flying At The Sun (The Magic Of Letting Go)

**Author's Note:**

> Before I even wrote the fic, I wrote this note because I had to say this: when I finished reading _Carry On_, I found myself hugging it to my chest. Like I would my favourite stuffed animal. Because it made me feel warm, happy, and comforted.
> 
> Sometimes this love of all things magical and ridiculous fills my heart to the brim, and all I can do is cuddle a hardcover book while sitting on my couch at midnight.
> 
> And now, have a fic :)

******

_“The whole prophecy is bollocks,” I say. “ ‘_And one will come to end us. And one will bring his fall.’ _Did I also bring my own fall?”_

_“No,” Baz says. “That was me. Obviously.”_

_“How did you bring my fall? I stopped the Humdrum myself.”_

_Baz looks back at his phone, bored. _“Fell _in love, didn’t you?”_

_Penny groans, and Baz starts laughing, trying not to crack a smile._

_— Carry On, _Rainbow Rowell, pg. 517

****** 

I’m fairly certain that this spell will not work. Penny and Baz insist that my “negative Nancy-ing” (Baz) is absolutely “inconducive to delicate and difficult experimentation” (Penny), and I should just shut up and be grateful for all their hard work (both).

Mostly I just want to ensure that there will be no explosions.

“We’ve just fixed up the flat how we want it, Penny,” I say while remaining as still as possible — the runes beneath my bare feet will rub off if I shift too much. They had been sketched with a chalky substance that was a mixture of several dead creatures (I hope for merwolves, fucking wretched things), charcoal, and some very strong floral essential oils. The lavender is particularly odorous, and I’m struggling to hold back a sneeze.

“You know I’ve got a mean **spic-and-span **and the like.” Penny waves me off. “Also, I’ve _finally _perfected **a spoonful of sugar.** It actually needed a snap at the end. It’s so brilliant — my clothes folded themselves and my bed was made up with _hospital corners._”

“Please insert the expected caustic commentary about arousal over neat bedspreads. “ Baz was studying their chalkboard of notes with an intensity he usually reserved for his first serving of bacon in the morning. “_How Clean is Your House? _must be like extremely thorough and spotless pornography for you, Bunce.”

“Managed a bit of commentary there, Baz,” I point out. “But Penny, the _noise, _the _money. _I haven’t got more than the temp work, and no spell can replace everything, especially if it’s in tiny bits—”

Penny holds her ring hand outstretched towards the door and surrounding walls, chanting, “**_Deaf to all,_” **which was usually only used in counter to **even the walls have ears**; it could only work on its own if the caster was genuinely expecting to be eavesdropped on — or if the caster knew that whatever was about to happen would be _impossibly loud. _

This did not reassure me in the slightest.

I’m crap at disguising how uncomfortable I am, which is probably why Baz comes over, careful not to step on the runes as he leans in to kiss me. Penny is decidedly not looking our way, so I don’t feel like a total nob for swooning a little.

Baz, the swotty bastard, smirks into the kiss before he pulls back. “All right there, Snow?”

I roll my eyes — and I pull him in by the back of his neck for one last, quick kiss before Penny starts casting **cool your jets**, like she has many times in the past few weeks.

But it’s hardly my fault that she picks the worst times to walk into the flat that we both share (and that Baz does not actually live in, though considering how much time he spends here, I think our neighbours are convinced that Baz is a third roommate who just works odd hours).

Also, I can’t snog Baz in my bedroom. Literally, I _can’t — _there’s barely enough room for me and my wings and tail, let alone me, my wings and tail, and a vampire. (We also can’t snog in Baz’s relatively nearby apartment, since it originally belonged to his Aunt Fiona, who most definitely has some kind of _Simon Snow _specific barrier set up; Baz likely can’t break it without her, though _he_ says he most definitely can “and that’ll put an end to the fucking numpties jokes.”)

But hopefully this will no longer be a problem, if Penelope and Baz’s study of runes proves accurate. And if they can create a spell that works together with said runes. And if they don’t blow us all up in the process.

“Right, almost there.” Penny picks up a spray bottle and proceeds to squirt a mist that smells of _more fucking lavender _into the air around me. I have to give in to the sneeze, but a quick check of the runes beneath my curled toes shows no damage was done.

“Right,” Penny says, indicating that Baz step back. “Simon, keep your wings and tail tucked in close, and please, try not to suddenly get your magic back and kill us all with the backlash.”

It shows how much I love Penny (and how much time/therapy I’ve had to work through my problems) that this joke only gets a rude gesture out of me.

Penny grins. Baz smirks. These are the two people I trust most in all the world.

So when Penny sticks her hand out towards me, fingers stretched, magical ring sparkling, her eyes narrowing in concentration, I don’t flinch. Baz points his wand down at the runes, speaks toneless words in an ancient, foreign language at the same time that Penny says, in a loud, commanding voice, “**_Flew too close to the sun_**_!_”

A blinding flash of light, a searing heat along my spine down towards my arse, the taste of sage overwhelming in my mouth; once the wind stops roaring past my ears, I dare to open my eyes. I feel lighter. I feel a lingering warmth on my back and a distinct breeze along parts that had been …

“Penny, I think you and Baz have done it.”

Which was both amazing and heart-breaking — suddenly the last vestiges of my magic are gone. The wings and tail, cumbersome and ugly though they were, had been all that was left of my life as a powerful (albeit totally useless) mage.

“No, Simon,” Penny says regretfully. “They’re still there. Damn it. What did we miss?”

I stare at her and then turn my head. The wings fill my vision. But I _can’t feel them. _I imagine flicking my tail and catch sight of it as well. It’s making me dizzy to see appendages attached to me that I can’t actually sense as part of my body. Baz is watching me intently, clearly about to ask me what was wrong; I tell him that they are not on my back in a way I can touch.

He cocks his head, frowning as he approaches — and his hand passes right through my left wing.

“Hm,” is all he says.

“Oh,” Penny adds.

“Well,” I say, “is there more to this spell or what?”

Penny and Baz exchange glances. Baz is the one who decides to explain. “The spell was meant to essentially melt them off you. The runes were dedicated towards enhancing the intangibility of the wings — if we downgraded them to no more than an image, the spell would be powerful enough to eradicate them all together.”

“So the runes worked, but the spell wasn’t strong enough,” I surmise. “The runes are old magic. Maybe you need to focus there? I didn’t create these things with a spell. Just … need. Desperation. Instinct.”

Penny wanders over to one of her many book piles. “I thought a combination of the two magicks would work, but perhaps you’re right. Baz, I don’t suppose you have more of this in your library?” She holds up a book that looks to be written _entirely _in runes. What a nightmare. I’ve a hard enough time managing the one language I grew up speaking.

Baz nods. “I believe so. But I think we can call it a day for now. We’ve got time to puzzle it out, as I’m not due for a family visit until this weekend. Need to get myself in the mood for yet another lecture on my waste of a life.”

I wince, because Baz’s tense family situation is largely my fault, though he insists that his life is his own — that he _chooses _his own miseries as well as his own happiness now, which would be the case with or without me in the picture. _“You’re not the centre of all things wrong in the world, Simon Snow, at least not anymore. Get over yourself.”_

I think I’m irrevocably in love with a bastard.

*******

Baz is touching my wings — except that he’s not because the intangibility is holding. “I mean, it’s half of what Bunce and I were going for. Points for that.”

I roll my eyes. “Congratulations, you only failed halfway.”

He nudges my back sharply. “Then I expect a half-measure’s gratitude.”

He follows his hard nudge with a soft, soothing motion where the wings protrude (protruded?) from my shoulder blades. It makes whatever retort I had (which, I’ll be honest, would have been about as clever as “fuck you” or “piss off”) die on my tongue. A moan slips out instead, and I try to muffle it into the pillow, but Merlin damn vampire ears.

I don’t have superior senses, but I swear that I _hear _Baz’s smirk. “Hm. Interesting.”

And then his hands massage a little more firmly, pressing down into the muscles on my back, loosening knots I didn’t know I had — knots that Baz wouldn’t have been able to reach if my wings were suddenly more than a magical illusion. It’s heavenly, is what it is, but fuck if Baz was going to get a reaction out of me.

I turn my head a bit. “They’re not going to be rubbed out of existence. You’re still a half-failure.”

“And you’re halfway to either falling asleep or getting off — do you want me to stop?”

That last bit is asked rather sincerely, the sarcasm dropping off to an honest inquiry. I turn my head further to be able to meet his eyes. “Only if _you_ want to stop.”

Baz’s smirk is now a smile, and my eyes fall shut before I can see any smugness return; his hands are working my back muscles as they haven’t been worked since the wings came into existence. At some point he’s straddling my hips, the better to reach and push and knead against the sore bits. Blissful.

And, unfortunately, doing more for my relaxation into sleep than my eagerness for more vampire necking. Hah, I’m getting better at puns. Maybe.

“It would figure you would be selfish like this,” Baz murmurs, his voice hardly more than a vibration in my ear. “With something that’s as much a pleasure for me as it is for you, you terribly noble boyfriend.”

I am a formless blob of jelly on my mattress, but I still manage to grab the prig with one arm, wrestle him back down to my side. Pull him in close so that he’s tucked into me, my arm over his back, our noses brushing together. It may have been that he didn’t fight me all that much, but I’m not going to call him out on that. _Baz_ and _cuddling_ are not often two things I got to indulge in together, what with our ludicrous schedules and limited private space.

My eyes are still closed, had been closed for ages, and they don’t open when Baz brushes a kiss against the tip of my nose. He says something about staying the night — a question, perhaps?

I answer by turning onto my side so I can pull him in even closer.

I no longer _think_ — I _know _that I am absolutely in love with this infuriatingly wonderful vampire.

Somehow, that makes the loss of my wings — the loss of my _magic _— bearable in a way that it hadn’t been for months, even with the time and the therapy.

We fall asleep and wake up hours later, well into the morning, when Penelope comes into the room (silently), stares at us (still silent), and then starts shouting about Baz and spells and _what did you do, why are his wings gone?!_

******

“Before you say it, it was _not _a sex thing — there was _no sex,_” I say firmly from my spot by the breakfast table.

Baz scowls, standing in the middle of the living room with his arms crossed. “There went that bit of fun. Really, Snow, you have _no brains. _We could have been having sex for magic’s sake_. Experimental magical sex, _you bloody moron.”

I do not turn completely red, but my ears are absolutely aflame. Penny doesn’t even stop to mock us because she’s too caught up in her stacks of notes (now no longer stacks so much as a collage that covers the floor and walls and tables and couches).

“There’s nothing in here about sex or endorphins or … wait.” She sits down on the floor and grabs at a random sheet, reads it absurdly quickly, and then reaches up over her head to yank Baz over by his belt buckle as he hasn’t deigned to put on a shirt.

“Bunce, _what_—”

“This! This is it! We misinterpreted the meaning of this passage! Read!”

Baz had already grabbed the paper and began reading it as Penelope ranted. His eyebrows shoot up towards his widow’s peak; he glances over at me and back at the sheet, then back to Penny. “This is so saccharine I rather wish I could unknow it. Also, how does it make sense? The story of Icarus is about the dangers of arrogance, of disobeying your wiser elders, of—”

“But the runes were about bringing forth intangibility and distilling something to its base form as much as possible.” Penny is staring back and forth between them. “I think the spell we created isn’t about flying so close to the sun that you melt your illusions away — it’s about being willing to let go of those illusions and _falling._”

I stare at her. “I … don’t know what that means.”

“Simon,” Penny begins with her lecturing tone, “what were you doing last night?”

“Aside from not having sex?” I answer, ignoring Baz’s eye-roll. “Um, relaxing, I suppose. He gave me a massage. We fell asleep.”

Penny grabs the paper back from Baz, a pen in hand, poised to take notes. “Fine, but what were you talking about? Thinking about?”

I look towards Baz.

He blinks back at me. “I wasn’t doing much other than trying to get into your pants. And then you fell asleep on me.”

I take a turn rolling my eyes. “I was thinking about how strange it is to see the wings but not feel them. I was … enjoying the massage and sort of … drifting. I was thinking about …” I gesture towards Baz.

Penny is actually writing down what I’m saying, which is vaguely horrifying.

“There must be more,” she says, her pen moving even though I’m not speaking. “What about Baz, specifically, were you thinking about?”

“Just that he’s a bit of a bastard,” I say, and apparently Baz finds this hilarious because he snorts loudly and reaches over to poke a finger into that particular mole on my neck. I flinch and bat at his hands.

Penny clears her throat loudly before we fall on each other in a not-so-playful wrestling match.

“Simon,” is the only word she says, but it’s loaded with so much: _I know you’re not telling me everything. I’m trying to help you here. Stop avoiding the question._

“Penny, you’re my best friend, but some things—” I try to explain.

“Simon,” and this came from Baz, who so rarely used my first name since I’ve known him, (until this past year), that it’s still a tad odd to hear it from him. “Whatever it is, just tell her. She’s going to be insufferable to us both until you spill it.”

“Quite right,” Penny agrees, fixing me with a stern stare, pen pointedly held up high over her paper.

I stare down at my hands for a long time. I sink into the memory of Baz wrapped tightly in my arms, the way that, once he is exhausted, or asleep, his guard falls away and he grips me even harder than I hold him — his vampire strength, I suppose — and he breathes in deeply, sighing contentedly.

“The last thing I thought about was Baz, and that I’m unfortunately so in love with him that it’s beyond helping.”

Silence.

I finally look up, and Baz is giving me the most incredulous glare. “Really? Good grief, you certainly took your time of it.” His annoyance is softened by the faintest pink along his cheekbones (he’ll need to feed soon, I think absently), and the twitching of his hands (towards me, like he wants to touch but can’t, a familiar gesture from the early years at Watford — I’d thought then he’d wanted to strangle me. Maybe he did. But not every time).

I stare back, mouth falling open, but I’ve no more words — not when Baz is staring at me like that, in a way that isn’t really new, but somehow … is.

Penny is scribbling away, making somewhat disturbing noises of epiphany.

I splutter out towards Baz, “What does that even mean?”

“It means I’ve been in love with you since fifth year, Simon.”

“I … knew that?” But honestly, for all that we’ve joked, him more so than me, about _falling in love _or _suicide prevented by making out _(dark humour is a decent coping mechanism for trauma, or so my psychologist tells me), somehow the reality of that _sentiment _hasn’t quite struck home.

Until right in this moment.

Or until last night, I suppose, when the certainty, the _fact _of it, settled at last.

_“How did you bring my fall? I stopped the Humdrum myself.”_

_Baz looks back at his phone, bored. “_Fell _in love, didn’t you?”_

None of this should come as a shock to me, but somehow it renders me mute for a bit. I stare at him and wonder if maybe there’s a way to get Penny to leave … or if maybe I no longer care about having ice cold buckets of water dumped on me, because I’ve never wanted to kiss that sarcastic mouth more.

“Always been so slow on the uptake,” Baz laments, though he isn’t hitting that insulting tone quite right, for all he remains rather impassive and somewhat irritated in expression. “We must’ve said it to each other at least sixty times since you moved in with Bunce.”

“Simon,” Penny says, and she sounds some mixture of awed and disdainful. “That’s it. You _fell._”

“In a … metaphorical sense? Because I stayed in bed until you came screaming in this morning,” I say, trying to keep the flush under control (failing) and my voice calm (mildly successful). She stares at me until I feel rightly ashamed, and really, Penny is the last person I should feel shame in front of. She’s seen the worst of me (and Baz). She has saved our hides more than once.

I glance over at Baz, who is still playing aloof far too well.

Painful sincerity, unbridled affection, ridiculous fondness — it’s all there as I confess, “I’ve been falling for a good long while.”

“For me,” Baz says with a wry little twist to his mouth. “Even for us, that’s a gross cliché of magic.” But I catch the tiny tic that spawns afterwards; this twat, this posh bastard, he’s _in love with me, _and he can’t help but like the things I do and say to romance him. I feel like I could fly with these intangible wings of mine. Or without them, even.

“This is unbearably adorable,” Penny speaks through a smile. “Also, rather not what Baz and I intended, so much more study is needed. Which I will be doing out of doors, until dinner? Is that enough time, do you think?”

I open my mouth to ask _enough time for what? _But click onto Penny’s meaning not a split second before I could make a fool of myself. My mouth snaps shut.

Baz sniffs. “Really, Bunce, you think I’m going to allow us to have a trope-prompted shag?”

“Who nearly tore my head off for denying us magical experimental sex?” I ask the room rhetorically.

Baz’s lips part, yet he closes his mouth a moment later, licking those same, stupidly tempting lips, baring a hint of fang as he says, “This is a fair point you’re making. In fact, Bunce, I think I’ll be redrawing those runes after you go, at which point Snow and I shall be experimenting … until dinner time. Do pick us up some Thai on your way home?”

“Also some plain chips and a burger,” I say, causing Baz to go off on his usual muttered _such pedestrian tastes, for Crowley’s sake, Snow _tirade.

“Right, well,” Penny coughs, her eyes rolling as she gathers up her giant knitted purse (magically charmed to be three times as big on the inside) and jams her feet into her runners. “Baz, could you please at least try out a few different occlusion spells? **There’s nothing to see here **or perhaps **see no evil**?”

Baz nods, making a big show of jotting said spells down on the chalkboard in a lurid shade of pink. Penny makes a disgusted noise deep in the back of her throat before tossing a smile my way and heading out the door.

We wait approximately twelve seconds before pouncing on one another; Baz is quicker, for vampire-reasons, and so I’m the one who ends up pinned to the floor with bits of paper crumpling and prickling beneath me. Doesn’t much make a difference to me, as all I want is the stupid _perfect _tosser to kiss me, which he does, thoroughly … Though Baz draws back not thirty seconds into _that, _grey-pink mouth twisting and eyes narrowing.

“It is extremely off-putting to see these things attached to you and not feel them.” He makes a motion over my head, clearly stroking on and through the wings.

“I’m just happy I don’t have to rip holes into my jeans or shirts anymore,” I say, hands snaking up Baz’s back, tracing the knobs of his spine through his cool skin. “Wait, are you keeping your eyes open while kissing again? You weirdo.”

“Mm,” he hums, his black hair falling into his eyes, catching in his lashes as he bends low, nudging his nose against mine, nipping at my lips, refusing to resume kissing. He likes to tease, this one, and it’s all well and good when _he _does it, but if I tease, then it’s a whole _thing _… a humbling thing because he _wants _so much … _Fuck me, I love him so much. _He’s staring into my eyes, hesitating slightly. “I should probably do as Bunce asked—”

“Could we maybe _not _mention Penny when, y’know …” I raise my hips to emphasize this point, and Baz lifts his away, which is _not _what I wanted. “Wait, no—”

“**_There’s nothing to see here,_**” Baz mutters under his breath, his wand … somewhere. “Much better … Wait right there.” He stands up, whipping his belt off as he goes (fantastic) and reaching for the chalk to jot a few notes down (less fantastic). “Now I can finally do better than that robot spell Bunce uses.” Under the list of spells to experiment with he writes **These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. **“That might actually be worth a try as well, in combination with the intangibility. We’ll have to wait for her, though, since I still don’t know what the fuck it means.”

“Star Wars, Baz, it’s a Star Wars reference. You promised me we’d sit and watch at some point. You like Doctor Who, yeah? It’s not much different, in a way.”

I sit up, peeling my own shirt off, staring at the tears where my wings used to physically push through. The chalk stops tapping against the board at some point, and I look up to see Baz frowning at me. I toss the shirt aside, leaning back against the sofa. “What?”

“Nothing, I just … The wings and tail …” Baz gestures with the chalk meaninglessly. “I’d grown rather used to them. It’s odd. You seem smaller.”

“I am smaller. I mean, not just in the sense that you’re taller, but I did just lose body parts that were literally part of me. Well. Sort of. Not born with me, but attached to me. Although, are they still?”

I can’t even begin to understand the magic that’s involved with parts that are no longer tangibly attached, yet still visible to the eye. I’m sure Penny and Baz will be working on equations and physics and all that, eventually explaining it in layman’s terms for me. However, I don’t need their smarts to grasp that this most definitely is a step forward … towards me finally being fully mundane, ordinary, a Normal with no access to magic except through my chosen, self-made family,

“Maybe now my family won’t see you as the literal embodiment of evil,” Baz murmurs, half to himself, I think, as he closes the distance between us again, dropping down in a graceful tumble to sit in front of me.

“I’d have to grow breasts and a vagina for that to happen,” I say, crossing my arms and tossing a few wayward curls off my forehead.

Baz makes a comically grossed-out expression, his nose scrunched up and eyes nearly completely shut. “For fuck’s sake, that wasn’t necessary. I’ll take you with the wings, tail, and covered in scales over _that._”

“Hey,” I say, offended on behalf of … someone. Penny, maybe.

“Gay, Snow. So very gay. Breasts and vaginas are not inherently gross, only in that I, as a very gay man, would find it very _gross _to touch them in the ways I like touching you.”

“That you _love_ touching me,” I correct, and Baz makes a thick noise in the back of his throat, but he reaches over to brush gentle fingers through my hair, carefully navigating the tangled curls.

“If you stop talking about womanly parts, I would very much like to touch you in the time we have to ourselves, yes?”

I nod emphatically, and he laughs … But his hands hesitate about an inch from my skin, and he withdraws, which has me sitting up straighter, reaching for him instead. He lets me seize those hands, drag them back towards my chest. He rests them there, and then crawls forward, straddling my hips.

“Do you want to talk?” This is a question I’ve been asking him a lot lately, since I can no longer suggest that maybe he seek a little psychological help of his own — that fight lasted a whole week, and I wasn’t ready to step onto that minefield again. But I could ask him to talk to _me _and usually, he did.

“I want to have sex with you, but considering that there’s been a lot of kissing and groping, but no sex until now, I wonder about … you. You’ve been …”

“In mourning.” It’s easier to say, now, though not so easy to traverse day to day. “I lost several life-long important things all at once, and it’s been … hard to come to terms. You make it bearable.”

“Ah, ‘bearable’ is just what I’ve always wanted to inspire in someone,” he says with a quiet little huff.

I pinch his side, which doesn’t get me anything other than a raised eyebrow. “You know what I mean. You and Penny are everything worthwhile in my life.”

“As much as I absolutely should be the most valuable aspect of your existence, you can’t subside on me alone,” Baz says, resting his full weight on my thighs, his hands sliding down to my stomach — somewhat more fit than I used to be, what with no longer starving two months of the year. In addition, I’ve taken to working out to stave off boredom when Baz and Penny are busy in their respective pursuits.

“Like how you actually need something aside from blood to survive,” I say with a smile.

“Yes, yes, Simon, you’re the world’s foremost expert on vampires.” Baz’s hands flutter in exasperation, though he pairs that with a fond smile.

“Only because no one actually bothered to study them as if they were actual people.”

I may not be as academically minded as Baz and Penny, but I do have a notebook filled with my observations of Baz’s vampiric nature. His immortality is kind of … up in the air, but I’m leaning towards not so much, considering he was bitten at four and is obviously growing. But there’s so many other interesting facets that just … no one seems to know, which is awful, in my opinion. There’s no one we trust that we can ask about it, so I try to put down as much as I can see, and maybe Baz (or Penny) can compile my observations into something comprehensive and worthwhile.

“Stop making this about me,” Baz says, brow furrowing, “I’m trying to make sure you’re actually okay with us moving forward. We’ve had opportunities, few though they were, and you’ve not …”

“I didn’t want to rush it, Baz. But now, we’ve got _hours, _and …” I gesture at his currently topless form sitting astride my legs. “I think I’ve snogged you more than a hundred times at this point. I’ve told you how fucking cool I think you are, how pretty you looked floating across the moat, and any number of other—”

“I know you’re attracted to me, what I want to know if is if you want to have sex with me right now. Later is an option. Never, too.”

“No, _never is not an option,_” I say, horrified, before my brain catches up with my mouth. “Oh. Unless, that’s a thing, for you?” Penny has been discreetly leaving pamphlets about sexuality around the flat (_discreetly_ meaning stuffing my bedside table with them, my gym bag, and on one occasion, taping one to the bathroom mirror).

“The number of filthy fantasies I’ve had about you do not speak to any disinterest on my part, Snow.” Baz actually grins. “Did I ever tell you how I spent the entirety of one summer wanking at every opportunity, in a futile attempt to get you out of my system? Didn’t work, obviously, but it was worth the effort.”

“I’m not witty enough to come up with a dirty joke to that, but I know there is one.” I’m blushing right down to my chest, which has Baz grinning even wider. “And, ah, now or later both work for me? Which one do you prefer?”

“Now,” Baz says promptly, and then kisses me far more softly than I thought he would before a shag.

It’s nice, in a way that I don’t really associate with his sharp edges and biting words. But I know Baz, maybe better than anyone does, and his softness is carefully meted out when someone really, truly needs it. Otherwise, all his tenderness rests inside him, protected from a world that either wants to stake him through the heart …_ (“We’ve been through this, Snow — that would pretty much kill anything.”)_ … Or see him ascend to power and restore the old Order. _(“Not that I could do that, what with being queer and fairly ambivalent on the whole making an heir thing.”)_

Normally I’m carried away when we touch like this; it’s like floating along a river, with a current that’s swift but steady, and perfectly temperate and safe; why wouldn’t I let it carry me away? But my mind is stuck on Baz saying that, _“I’ve been in love with you since fifth year, Simon.” _It bothers me that I can’t pinpoint exactly when I started feeling more than adversarial towards him … The obsession should’ve been a big clue, but that slipped right by me. Thinking him cool and pretty at odd times should’ve been another set of red flags, which I completely missed …

“Right, this is more than a little offensive.” Baz pulls his mouth away, and that is _not _what I wanted, but also, right, I’m not actually actively participating anymore.

“I’m just … it’s me being stupid, again. Just frustrated I don’t have years of pining to back up my feelings,” I say with a flinch as Baz swipes his hand over his lips, sighing through his fingers. “Or that I can’t quite figure out when my pining started …”

“I can’t answer that for you, but I can say that all I care about is that you did, in fact, have your epiphany.” Here he smiles, and even if he’s sighing all over the place, I’m smiling back. “I don’t need you to have been tearing at your hair and clothes for me. Just like I don’t care if you’re gay or bisexual or none of the above. Do you love me, Simon?”

“Yes,” I say immediately. “Even if I doubted it … I’m pretty sure that the magick confirmed it last night, yeah?”

Baz nods, and his smile turns a little self-deprecating. “The magick confirmed it for me too when I used **On love’s light wings **to reach you in the chapel that day.”

I blink — that spell isn’t one I recognize.

Baz slides forward with his entire body, until his nose is brushing mine. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and rears back just enough to explain (and to keep me from going cross-eyed staring at him), “That particular incantation only works if you have a decent comprehension of the Great Vowel Shift of the Sixteenth Century, _and _if you’re ridiculously, soppily in love.”

I stare for a few seconds, drinking in the sight of him, so calm and _certain, _and then I’m the one kissing him as if I can devour the life’s blood he no longer has (maybe, because I know for a fact Baz is alive in ways no one else is).

I thought maybe Baz might be a touch more selective about the when and where of our first time making love (I don’t mind thinking of it that way, even if I could never say it out loud), but it turns out that he, much like me, doesn’t care so long as we’re safe and warm and together. He does spell away the papers and conjure up a few more blankets and pillows, lying us down in more of a nest than a bed, but in the living room we have space to stretch and roll and pin each other, laughing and groaning (in embarrassment because there were a few spells for our, ah, _needs, _that Baz couldn’t quite get right, and then when he did, he got them a little _too right, _and messes abounded).

Several hours pass, and we spend most of that time sleeping off our activities. Or, well, lightly dozing, periodically waking up to kiss or change positions or make snide remarks about cuddling while doing some of the _best_ cuddling _ever._

I wake up at half-past seven in the evening, and Penny is likely going to arrive home any minute. The spell has worn off my wings — even though I still can’t feel them, they bat within my periphery, and my tail snaps a few times as if to remind me of its existence. I sit up, with Baz’s arms still wrapped around me, though they fall to my waist as I run my fingers through his hair.

“Hm?” he says without much sound.

“We should get dressed,” I tell him in a whisper.

“Or not,” he says with one eye open. He closes it to be stubborn, and I kiss his furrowed brow.

“If Penny casts **cool your jets **it’s going to be very, very bad,” I point out, kissing one sharp cheekbone, then his nose, then his widow’s peak.

“While that is a sound argument, you’re hurting your case.”

He lifts a hand to cradle my face and guide me where he wants me.

I go because it's where I want to be as well.

Penny does, inevitably, arrive not ten minutes later. We’re dressed (haphazardly) and all the extra blanket and pillows have returned to their previous existence as piles of laundry or stacks of books. Penny is highly annoyed at the disorganization of her notes, but she’s also very glad we “_took care of all that tension, thank Merlin, now have some Thai and chips.”_

We eat at the coffee table, and Baz and Penny discuss a few more possibilities before I mention that Baz still hasn’t seen Star Wars, and it would be great if he could learn **These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.** Thus, the rest of the night is spent streaming _A New Hope _on our modest television, with Penny taking up almost the entire sofa herself, while Baz and I are relegated to the second-hand reclining armchair.

Obi-Wan says his iconic line, and Baz blinks. “_That’s _it? _That’s _what that spell is based off?”

“Shh!” I elbow him in the side. “I’ll show you a few YouTube videos of all the spoofs later. Shut up and enjoy the rest.”

Which he does, in the end; he’s smiling when the final credits roll, and he’s actually eager to watch the rest. (“_I was aware of Star Wars, just never really cared to investigate further. How many movies are there?” “Six,” I say, just as Penny shouts, “Three!”_)

We’ve got _The Empire Strikes Back _cued up, and Baz is stealing my chips, distracting me with lingering kisses on my freckles and moles. He’s nibbling slightly on my earlobe, sliding a handful towards his empty plate, when I dump half my food onto it for him, shifting just enough to whisper, “Take ‘em, you tosser. Because I love you enough to share.”

Baz stares at the chips, then back at me. His smile is slow, and it warms me from my toes to my scalp as it forms. He nips at the hickey in his favourite spot on my neck before murmuring directly into my ear, “Love you enough to watch Normals pretend at magic.”

“Oi, you two, enough!” Penny throws a small pillow, sailing harmlessly over our heads. “God, I can’t wait for Micah to visit so we can outdo you with the embarrassing displays of affection.”

“_You’re on, Bunce!” _Baz says indignantly. “We’ll see who caves first!”

“Shut up, both of you, the opening scroll is starting!”

They both quiet down, and it takes very little time for Baz to be wrapped up in this story — _Empire _is my second favourite (after _Return of the Jedi, _which Penelope hates because she has it in for the Ewoks, who are my favourite kind of teddy bear).

My tail flicks a little … and I can _feel _it, so very faintly, but most definitely _there_.

I roll my shoulders, and there’s a faint tingle along the wings, though not quite as strong.

The tail brushes against my ankle, and I look at it for a moment … It’s frustrating to have wings and a tail that force me to rip my clothes, have spells cast on me at set intervals throughout the day, and take up too much space for me to comfortably kiss (or, now, shag) my boyfriend …

They symbolize a world of magic, but I think … I think I’m ready to let it go. I was fine this afternoon without them. I can be fine with them gone for good.

I’ll mention this new development to Baz and Penny tomorrow. Tonight is for _Star Wars _and cuddles.

Baz won’t be too sad to see _and _feel the wings and tail, I know, at least for a little while longer. He’ll love me in any iteration — I believe that whole heartedly, now. Just like I love him with his mouth too salty from chips, vampire teeth flashing in the lights of the movie, hair dishevelled from our first time, and his cool hand sneaking down to lift my shirt and rest on my bare waist, tugging me even closer. And I go, willingly, happily.

There’s no whispers or regrets just now; only my boyfriend and my best friend and a decent movie, and that’s a kind of magic all on its own.

******

**Author's Note:**

> How did this even happen? 
> 
> Well, okay, I have some notion of what brought it all about ...
> 
> _Harry Potter_ is part of what inspired Rainbow Rowell to write _Fangirl_, I believe. She created the fictional, affectionate Simon Snow series and the fangirl, Cath, who loves it so much that she wrote fanfiction, which Rowell used pieces of within _Fangirl._ And then Rainbow Rowell decided that if Cath could do it, so could she, so she took the title of Cath’s epic fanfic about this book series that doesn’t actually exist except as snippets in _Fangirl_, and she wrote her own version of Simon and Baz. This rather meta-fictional creation hurts my brain.
> 
> But it is so very awesome. Sometimes I have trouble believing it exists, so I just re-read my favourite passages to remind me ;)
> 
> I hope someone will enjoy this silly little tale that is my interpretation of Simon and Baz — I've actually had it mostly completed since _Carry On_ came out, but I wasn't motivated to finish it until we got so close to the release of _Wayward Son_.
> 
> [I'm around on Tumblr](https://thisgirlhastales.tumblr.com/), and will likely be swooning over Simon and Baz once I've read _Wayward Son_, if you care to join me :) 
> 
> Otherwise, many thanks if you've made it this far, and happy reading! :) *hugs*


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